India's railroad history started in 1837 when The Red Hill Railway used the country's first steam-powered locomotive to carry stone for road work to Madras, modern-day Chennai. In 1845, India's first railway was incorporated, the Madras Railway. Sixteen years later, on a warm April day in 1853, a 14-carriage train carrying 400 passengers was hauled over 20 miles miles by three steam locomotives - the Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan - and passenger railway service was thus initiated in India. From there, as they say, the rest is history, and India today has the fourth-largest railway network in the world.

18 India is an operational railroad game for 2 to 5 people that plays in roughly 3 hours. The game is inspired by 1829 Mainline by Francis Tresham, and while the venerable Mr. Tresham created some novel mechanics for that game, many of them are not ideal for players who aren't fans of in-game randomness. In 18 India, those random elements are transformed into an amazing level of pre-game variability, which provides each session of the game a different character.